How To Look Younger While Actually Ageing

Yesterday afternoon, over coffee with a running mate (no, I’m not running for any office), I told him my exact age. I should have prepared him, but he was shocked. He himself is a little younger, but still, he was shocked. This shock is precisely what women of a certain age like to generate. I laughed gaily at his surprise.

A year or two ago, I would never have revealed such a thing. Some say it’s gauche, not a classy thing for a woman of a certain age to do. And if I’ve disappointed you, sorry.

I attribute it, I said, to my recent interest in running. It’s more than that, he said. It has more to do with an attitude towards life and people, a certain ‘vitality.’

Now that’s an interesting word, for vitality and I go together like pie in the sky.

Vitality is vigour, an energetic style. Andre would snort if I was described to him as energetic. In Wordnik.com, vitality is linked with other sporty words like freshness, animation, originality, inspiration, and get this, sweetness.

This is how you can appear to be rejuvenated and full of vitality:

1. Always carry a bag of jokes around with you. Laughter is not just good medicine, it’s also one key ingredient in the elixir of youth.

2. Take pictures with men and women older than yourself and (if you’re the type) post these online.

3. Hang around people mostly younger than you and explore their worlds with them.

5. Engage in a sport and if possible, be crazy about it, even if it’s only for a season. Achieving personal bests can give you a more positive outlook and if you’re lucky, you might even emanate a positive vibe which others pick up when they hang around you. (Not me.)

6. Do something new often.

7. Realize you can learn from anybody.

8. Learn to be true to yourself, even if it means putting up artwork in your home which you like very very much but are not sure others will. So? It’s your wall. Please yourself.

Vitality, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. The list is incomplete, partly because I don’t know what it is others see that is vital in me. So, please, leave a comment!